Can anything be more gratifying than sparking students' interest in school subjects and helping nurture a love of learning? Motivation is important to student success and begins early and remains significant throughout adolescence. Research shows that students who begin school at lower levels of motivation are at a greater academic disadvantage throughout their academic careers.
Early motivational theorists in psychology attempted to explain motivation in many different settings and for many kinds of behaviors. Motivation is referred to as multidimensional: it measures impulsive and deliberate action, is concerned with the internal and external factors, and observes causes for behavior. Harter (1983) proposed a model of mastery or effectance motivation, describing the effects of both success and failure experiences on mastery motivation. The goals of effectance motivation are acquiring competence and influencing one's environment (Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998). Mastery motivation is defined as a general tendency to interact with and to express influence over the environment.According to Goldberg (1994), children with intrinsic motivation in academic would have higher self-perceptions of competence in academics and that children who are extrinsically motivated would have lower perceived academic competence. Harter's effectance motivation theory is important because it includes the effects of both success and failure on subsequent motivation (Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998).Student's motivation for learning is generally regarded as one of the most critical determinants, if not the premier determinant, of the success and quality of any learning outcome (Mitchell, 1992). Examining the construct of intrinsic motivation in elementary school students is significant and important, because academic intrinsic motivation in the elementary years may have profound implications for initial and future school success. Students who are more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated fare better and students who are not motivated to engage in learning are unlikely to succeed (Gottfried, 1990).
Gottfried found positive correlations between motivation and achievement. Specifically, young students with higher academic intrinsic motivation had significantly higher achievement and intellectual performance. She also found that early intrinsic motivation correlates with later motivation and achievement and that later motivation is predictable from early achievement (Gottfried, 1990). It was also found that perceived academic competence was positively related to intrinsic motivation. It seems that students who feel competent and self-determined in the school context develop an autonomous motivational profile toward education, which in turn leads them to obtain higher school grades. Perceived academic competence and perceived academic self-determination positively influenced autonomous academic motivation, which in turn had a positive impact on school performance (Fortier, Vallerand, & Guay, 1995).
Research compiled from:
Ibtesam Halawah "The effect of motivation, family environment, and student characteristics on academic achievement". Journal of Instructional Psychology. FindArticles.com. 05 Apr, 2011.
SELF THEORIES
Self-Efficacy Theory
Albert Banduraand his social-cognitive theory provides us with several important concepts in the understanding of student motivation and subsequent achievement. These concepts are: self-efficacy, self-regulation, and teacher efficacy.
Self-efficacy-an expectation that we are capable of performing a task or achieving success in an activity, influences our motivation for the task or activity. In order to maintain motivation students must have high outcomes and efficacy expectations. Outcome expectations-beliefs that particular actions lead to outcomes, success and efficacy expectations Efficacy expectations-beliefs that the requisite skill or knowledge exists to achieve the outcome.
Bandura believed that self-efficacy is a critical dterminant of behavior in school, society, relationships and activities like sports. Bandura believed that self-efficacy is domain specific meaning a student may have high self-efficacy in English and not in higher subjects.
Example of self-efficacy theory An elementary student might believe that learning vocabulary words makes students better readers and writers (outcome expectation), however in order to be motivated to achieve the student also needs to believe he/she has the ability to memorize the assigned vocabulary words (efficacy expectation).
The theory states that students with high self-efficacy and outcome expectations maintain confidence in academic tasks, they are able to persist when tasks are difficult, they are motivated. Conversely, students with low efficacy and outcome expectations are discouraged by failure, lack persistence and perserverence in face of difficulty and thus are not motivated.
Self-regulation-Self-efficacy greatly influences self-regulation in learners. Students with high self-efficacy are most likely to engage in processes of self-regiulation such as goal, setting, self-monitoring, self-evaluation. These processes are linked to desireable intrinsic motivation, students are more likely to chose difficult tasks, respond positively to negative feedback and choose more effective strategies for organizing organization and monitoring performence, As a result of all the factors students with higher self-efficacy attain higher achievement.
Teacher-efficacy-is a belief by instructors that they have necessary skills to teach a variety of students effectively, positively influence students and their achievement. Teachers also will develop outcome expectations that all students can learn material and efficacy expectations which is belief in their own ability to help all children learn.
Self Determination Theory
According to self-determination theory, humans possess universal, innate needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. Autonomy or self-determination is when we perceive our behavior to be internally controlled or self-regulated, leading us to have choices in action rather than being controlled or pressured. Humans also have a need for competence, or an innate desire to explore and attempt mastery of skills. Relatedness is a sense of being securely connected to others and it goes hand in hand with a need to have a feeling of safety to explore our environments. The self-determination theory and the famous humanistic theory illustrated through Maslow's hierarchy of needs (mentioned later in wiki) are related and similar.
Becoming Self-Determined-
Like self-efficacy, self-determination is specific to a particular activity or subject. Individuals can develop self-determination for behaviors such as schoolwork, chores, or attending religious functions. Individuals develop self-determination throught a developmental process known as internalization which is moving from less self-dtermined to more self-determined behavior. Individuals show different types of motivation that varies in degree of autonomy depending on the degree of success at internalizing external regulations of behavior. Amotivation-lack of motivation, individuals dont value activity and feel incompetent and have no expections to yeild the desired outcome External Regulation-the least autonomous for of extrinsic motivation, individuals respond to external contigencies like rewards, prais, punishments and deadlines. Introjected Regulation-extrinsic motivation in which individuals engage in an activity in order to comply with external pressure. Identification-slightly internalized form of regulation that approximates intrinsic motivation. Individuals identify with the value of an activity, have accepted regulation of the activity as their own, and more willingly engage in the activity because they see it as personally relevant. Integration-occurs when individuals have fully accepted extrinsic regulations by integrating them with other aspects of their values and identity.
Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs
Abraham Maslow (1954) attempted to synthesize a large body of research related to motivation theory. Prior to Maslow, researchers generally focused separately on such factors as biology, achievement, or power to explain what energizes, directs, and sustains human behavior. Maslow posited a hierarchy of human needs based on two groupings: deficiency needs and growth needs. Within the deficiency needs, each lower need must be met before moving to the next higher level. Once each of these needs has been satisfied, if at some future time a deficiency is detected, the individual will act to remove the deficiency. The first four levels are:
3) Belong and Love: affiliate with others, be accepted; and
4) Esteem: to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition.
According to Maslow, an individual is ready to act upon the growth needs if and only if the deficiency needs are met. Maslow's initial conceptualization included only one growth need--self-actualization. Self-actualized people are characterized by: 1) being problem-focused; 2) incorporating an ongoing freshness of appreciation of life; 3) a concern about personal growth; and 4) the ability to have peak experiences. Maslow later differentiated the growth need of self-actualization, specifically identifying two of the first growth needs as part of the more general level of self-actualization and one beyond the general level that focused on growth beyond that oriented towards self They are:
5) Cognitive: to know, to understand, and explore;
6) Aesthetic: symmetry, order, and beauty;
7) Self-actualization: to find self-fulfillment and realize one's potential; and
8) Self-transcendence: to connect to something beyond the ego or to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential.
Maslow's basic position is that as one becomes more self-actualized and self-transcendent, one becomes more wise (develops wisdom) and automatically knows what to do in a wide variety of situations.
Maslow published his first conceptualization of his theory over 50 years ago and it has since become one of the most popular and often cited theories of human motivation. An interesting phenomenon related to Maslow's work is that in spite of a lack of empirical evidence to support his hierarchy, it enjoys wide acceptance. Maslow recognized that not all personalities followed his proposed hierarchy. While a variety of personality dimensions might be considered as related to motivational needs, one of the most often cited is that of introversion and extroversion.
Self-Actualization and the Implication of Maslow's Theory for Education The climax of the hierarchy is the attainment of self-actualization or "the desire to become everything that one is capable of becoming". The implication of Maslow's theory lies in the relationship between deficiency and growth needs. Students who are in danger, hungry, living in poverty often have unfullfilled needs and are unable to strive for or achieve self-actualization. Schools and government agencies are sympathetic to these needs and recognize learning suffers when basic needs of students are not met. Programs that offer free and/or reduced lunches, breakfast at school and after school programs for the impoverished are funded by government agencies and school districts. The most critical deficiency needs are love and self-esteem, often these needs are not solved with financial allocations. Students with deficiency in feeling loved are unlikely to have motivation to achieve the higher level growth objectives. Ultimately a teacher who is able to put students at ease, help them feel valuable, lovable and important is more likely to enhance the students eagerness to learn. If students are to become self-directed learners, they must believe that the teacher will respond fairly and consistently to them, they wont be ridiculed if they take educational risks that are not correct. Attribution TheoryandMotivation
Defined, attribution theory is a theory that focuses on how people explain the cause of their own successes and failures. Proposed by cognitive psychologist Bernard Weiner, this theory has three major components:
Locus of Causality (Is the cause of success or failure internal or external?)
Stability (Would the outcome of the assessment be the same if the same behavior was prompted in a different situation?)
Control (Can the cause for success or failure be directly controlled by the student?)
An equally important note is that attribution theory works on the assumption that individuals will endeavor to preserve a positive self-concept.
Four primary attributions exist: ability, effort, task difficulty and luck. Let’s break them down according to the three principles above:
Ability
Task Difficulty
Effort
Luck
Internal
X
X
External
X
X
Stable
X
X
Unstable
X
X
Little Control
X
X
X
Control
X
In order to take a closer look at this theory, we will follow a student, Jason, through different classes in his fifth grade year. Can you identify the conditions of each situation?
In our first vignette, Jason is readily succeeding in social studies class. When Mr. Weaver commends him on his performance, Jason replies “it’s so easy I feel like I don’t even have to study.” This attribution is ability-based and is internal, stable and largely uncontrollable. Jason is attributing his success to his natural aptitude for social studies, easily categorizing himself as “smart” in this subject area.
Here, we see Jason’s performance in social studies class begin to slip. Jason’s explanation for his performance centers on effort and is internal, unstable and controllable. Rather than classifying himself as “stupid” (internal, stable) or blaming his performance on external factors, Jason explains that he was not expending enough energy. He highlights the instability of his this attribution by noting that he will “work harder.” This implies that an increase in effort can turn his performance around.
In this instance, we follow Jason into his least favorite class: mathematics. Upon the receipt of a not-so-great assignment, Jason becomes upset. When questioned by Mr. Weaver, he reveals his explanation for failure: math is simply “too hard.” This explanation is based on task difficulty and is external, stable and uncontrollable. Not wanting to change his perception of himself as a good student, Jason blames his performance on factors largely outside of his control.
In our fourth and final vignette, Jason appears to have turned his performance in math class around. Surprisingly; however, Jason reveals his success as being a result of luck – an external, unstable, uncontrollable attribution. With his history of below-average scores, Jason is careful not to attribute his surprise success to anything internal or stable so that, given the next assignment turns out differently, he does not have to re-label his perception of himself. What are the Implications of Attribution Theory for Education?
Whether we want to admit it or not, success and failure are components that run rampant in education. And, how a student perceives their success or failure at an activity is relational to how much effort they will put into similar activities in the future.
According to Purdue University, students are likely to be most motivated for school tasks when they attribute successes or failures to “internal, unstable factors over which they have control.” If we refer back to our chart, we are of course referring to our column for effort.
Harking back to our vignettes, we can see that when Jason attributed his trouble in social studies to a lack of effort, he displayed the belief that working harder could change his current less-than-favorable situation. This is where we want our students to be. Thus, teachers should attempt to instill in their students that working hard and giving each educational task their very best, can result in success. Essentially what one is doing is encouraging students to have an internal locus of control.
Defined, locus of control refers to whether people “attribute responsibility for their own failure or success to internal or external factors.” A student with an external locus of control would be most likely to blame task difficulty or luck for insufficiencies. Conversely, a student with an internal locus of control would blame themselves and their lack of effort. According to Robert Slavin, this characteristic is the second most effective predictor of a student’s academic performance. In fact, those students who tend to over-estimate the role that their effort plays in success or failure are the most efficacious. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Intrinsic incentive is an aspect of an activity that people enjoy and therefore find motivating. ex. Michelangelo Buonarroti Simoni (better known as simply Michelangelo) is the Italian painter and sculptor famously known for his work on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. In recollections of Michelangelo’s life, the late writer Vasari notes that though Michelangelo was sent to grammar school, he largely ignored his schooling in lieu of copying paintings and immersing himself in the artistic crowd. In other words, art had so much intrinsic incentive for Michelangelo that he sought it out himself.
Enhancing Intrinsic Motivation:
When attempting to increase Intrinsic Motivation in students, it is important to consider variety. While using a straight-forward PowerPoint presentation and accompanying lecture can be effective, this routine can easily become commonplace to students who endure much of the same for 180 school days. Effective teachers will, instead, use an assortment of teaching methods and aids. Below are some ideas for increasing intrinsic motivation, interspersed with different modalities for teaching. Notice the use of film, simulations and demonstrations.
A. Arousing Interest: When attempting to arouse interest in students, the goal is to either show how the information will be directly useful to students or to convince them that there is something inherently interesting within the material being presented.
Robert E. Slavin, author of Educational Psychology, Theory and Practice notes that teachers might stress to students, upon the start of a unit on percent, that when they begin to eat out using their allowance, they will need to calculate a tip for the waiter or waitress. This idea could be taken even further by simulating this experience for students in a “Restaurant Day” assignment. Students are put into groups of 2-4 and given menus that the teacher has collected from local restaurants. Each group is given a budget that they must stay with the boundaries of. Students are then directed to come up with a meal plan detailing what each person ordered, the tip for the waitress (at 15% and 20%) and if applicable, how much money they had left over. An example of what the teacher’s presentation might look like follows.
Convincing students that there is something inherently interesting within the material might be slightly more difficult. The key is to pick a topic for your anticipatory set that highlights something exciting, shocking or meaningful that is related to your subject. For example, in beginning a unit on the topic of volcanoes, teachers might show images of the plaster castes made from the bodies of those individuals who died after being covered by volcanic ash during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Pompeii and Herculaneum.
B. Choice: Giving students a choice in their education can serve as an intrinsic motivator. Students who are allowed to decide, for instance, what novel they are going to read in reading class, or whether or not they want to write an essay on the Battle of Gettysburg or the Battle of Shiloh, are often more motivated to partake in these educational tasks because they have selected them, and therefore have ownership of them.
A study entitled Stimulating Intrinsic Motivation for Problem Solving Using Goal Oriented Contexts and Peer Group Composition by Hae-Deok Song and Barbara L. Grabowski documents the effect that offering students a choice has. In their study, Song and Grabowski alter the distribution of authority between two groups. The first group has little choice, and during the course on an online problem-solving simulator, is forced to move through the program in a predetermined order. The second group is, conversely, allowed to navigate throughout the course at their own discretion. At the end of the study, based on surveys taken by the students involved in the experiment, the second group of students displayed greater intrinsic motivation to work through problem-solving activities.
C. Maintaining Curiosity: Maintaining curiosity throughout a unit can be tough, but there are ways to garner student attention when it appears to be fading. In his research, Robert E. Slavin notes that information that entails emotional materials (perhaps peril, tragedy or despair) piques student interest. Other elements that contribute to heightened interest are inserting demonstrations that flummox students, posing problems that aren’t easily solved, encouraging the use of computers, and, more generally, strong organization. D. Encouraging Realistic Goal Setting: On the whole, individuals who set goals for themselves are more likely to work hard to achieve these goals than are individuals who have goals set for them. This fact is quite obvious. A teacher may set the goal for his or her classroom at everyone achieving an A or B on an upcoming assignment; however, if a handful of students have no vested interest, the likelihood of that goal being achieved is low. While some students will have no trouble setting attainable goals for themselves, others may need some extra probing. Teachers would do well to sit down with these students in “goal-setting conferences.” These conferences should aid students in setting ambitious but realistic goals, provide counseling on how these goals can be achieved, and appropriately reinforce students when goals are followed through to fruition. -Extrinsic Incentives are rewards that are external to an activity such as recognition, a token, or a good grade.
While you as a teacher may be enamored with the subject of fractions, it is a safe bet that some of your students may not be. Thus, while you attempt to increase intrinsic motivation through some of the methods mentioned above, it is also wise to provide some extrinsic motivation for students who need that extra incentive.
One way to do this is to outline structured expectations for students. Students who do not come naturally to certain subjects need to know how they can succeed. Giving explicit directions, such as what needs to be done for the assignment, how the assignment will be graded, and what the lasting effects of the assignment will be, gives each student the confidence that putting their best effort into the offered set of requirements can result in the extrinsic reward they are seeking. A good example of structured expectations manifests itself in a rubric.
A second type of extrinsic incentive to consider is feedback. Feedback is defined as “information on the results of one’s effort” (Slavin, 318). In order for feedback to be motivating it must be unambiguous and expressed in a timely manner. When a teacher gives feedback, the goal is to encourage an effort-based attribution by telling students what they did correctly, so that their hard work will be repeated in future assignments.
It is important to remember that because what is motivational differs from individual to individual, extrinsic incentives such as grades or feedback will not work for everyone. Some students may respond best to being the line leader, having first access to the swings or feeding the class pet. Achievement motivation is the generalized tendency to strive for success and to choose goal-oriented, success/failure activities.
Student motivation can be oriented towards learning goals or performance goals.
When performance-oriented students run into problems or obstacles, they generally become discouraged and performance is hampered. When learning-oriented students run into problems or obstacles, they generally continue attempting to solve the problem. Sometimes, encountering the problem can increase the student’s motivation as well as their performance.Learning-Oriented Student Learned Helplessness is an extreme form of avoiding failure. A person suffering from learned helplessness feels that no matter what they do, it will result in failure. In an academic setting, this may take the form of “I fail because I’m stupid, so I will always fail”.
4 Ways to Help Students Overcome Learned Helplessness 1. Accentuate the positive - Get to know the student’s strengths and use these as building blocks.
2. Eliminate the negative – Deal with student’s weaknesses directly but tactfully. Talk with the student about the problem, create a plan to tackle with the problem, discuss the plan with the student and make a contract together about the implementation of the plan.
1. 3. Go from the familiar to the new – Teachers can use advance organizers and guided discovery to help students. Some students will have problems with concepts, skills or ideas that are new to them. Teachers should design lessons so they link to the student’s own experiences.
1. 4. Create challenges where students create their own problems and solve them using their own knowledge and skills.
For For more information on learned helplessness, go here.
Anxiety and Achievement
-Everyone experiences, however, for certain students anxiety can seriously inhibit learning as well as student performance.
-The main source of anxiety in school is the fear of failure. How can anxiety hurt school performance?
1. Anxious students may have difficulty learning new things, transferring knowledge, or demonstrating their knowledge to tests. 2. Anxious students can become overly self-conscious in performance settings. This can distract their attention from the current task being performed. 3. Many students and adults suffer from math anxiety. Math anxiety can be diminished through the teaching of the conceptual knowledge of mathematics before teaching the procedural knowledge of mathematics. Study Tips for Overcoming Math Anxiety Teachers can decrease the anxiety of students in a classroom in numerous ways.
1. Teachers can create a noncompetitive, accepting, and comforting classroom environment. 2. Teachers should allow students the opportunity to correct and improve their work before handing it in for a final grade. 3. Teachers should begin tests with easier problems and slowly move to more difficult problems as the test progresses. 4. Teachers should avoid giving timed tests. Students should be given all the time needed for them to complete and check their exams.
Resources:
-Song, Hae-Deok and Barbara L. Grabowski. Stimulating Intrinsic Motivation for Problem Solving using Goal-Oriented Contexts and Peer Group Composition. Educational Technology Research and Development: 54.5: 445-466.
-Slavin, Robert E. Educational Psychology Theory and Practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ; Pearson, 2009.
Motivation in Learning (and Teaching)
(by Ben Weaver, Carrie Krohn, and Jason Friedman)According to the Research
Can anything be more gratifying than sparking students' interest in school subjects and helping nurture a love of learning? Motivation is important to student success and begins early and remains significant throughout adolescence. Research shows that students who begin school at lower levels of motivation are at a greater academic disadvantage throughout their academic careers.Early motivational theorists in psychology attempted to explain motivation in many different settings and for many kinds of behaviors. Motivation is referred to as multidimensional: it measures impulsive and deliberate action, is concerned with the internal and external factors, and observes causes for behavior. Harter (1983) proposed a model of mastery or effectance motivation, describing the effects of both success and failure experiences on mastery motivation. The goals of effectance motivation are acquiring competence and influencing one's environment (Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998). Mastery motivation is defined as a general tendency to interact with and to express influence over the environment.According to Goldberg (1994), children with intrinsic motivation in academic would have higher self-perceptions of competence in academics and that children who are extrinsically motivated would have lower perceived academic competence. Harter's effectance motivation theory is important because it includes the effects of both success and failure on subsequent motivation (Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998).Student's motivation for learning is generally regarded as one of the most critical determinants, if not the premier determinant, of the success and quality of any learning outcome (Mitchell, 1992). Examining the construct of intrinsic motivation in elementary school students is significant and important, because academic intrinsic motivation in the elementary years may have profound implications for initial and future school success. Students who are more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated fare better and students who are not motivated to engage in learning are unlikely to succeed (Gottfried, 1990).
Gottfried found positive correlations between motivation and achievement. Specifically, young students with higher academic intrinsic motivation had significantly higher achievement and intellectual performance. She also found that early intrinsic motivation correlates with later motivation and achievement and that later motivation is predictable from early achievement (Gottfried, 1990). It was also found that perceived academic competence was positively related to intrinsic motivation. It seems that students who feel competent and self-determined in the school context develop an autonomous motivational profile toward education, which in turn leads them to obtain higher school grades. Perceived academic competence and perceived academic self-determination positively influenced autonomous academic motivation, which in turn had a positive impact on school performance (Fortier, Vallerand, & Guay, 1995).
Research compiled from:
Ibtesam Halawah "The effect of motivation, family environment, and student characteristics on academic achievement". Journal of Instructional Psychology. FindArticles.com. 05 Apr, 2011.
SELF THEORIES
Self-Efficacy Theory
Albert Banduraand his social-cognitive theory provides us with several important concepts in the understanding of student motivation and subsequent achievement. These concepts are: self-efficacy, self-regulation, and teacher efficacy.Self-efficacy-an expectation that we are capable of performing a task or achieving success in an activity, influences our motivation for the task or activity. In order to maintain motivation students must have high outcomes and efficacy expectations.
Outcome expectations-beliefs that particular actions lead to outcomes, success and efficacy expectations
Efficacy expectations-beliefs that the requisite skill or knowledge exists to achieve the outcome.
Bandura believed that self-efficacy is a critical dterminant of behavior in school, society, relationships and activities like sports. Bandura believed that self-efficacy is domain specific meaning a student may have high self-efficacy in English and not in higher subjects.
Example of self-efficacy theory
An elementary student might believe that learning vocabulary words makes students better readers and writers (outcome expectation), however in order to be motivated to achieve the student also needs to believe he/she has the ability to memorize the assigned vocabulary words (efficacy expectation).
The theory states that students with high self-efficacy and outcome expectations maintain confidence in academic tasks, they are able to persist when tasks are difficult, they are motivated. Conversely, students with low efficacy and outcome expectations are discouraged by failure, lack persistence and perserverence in face of difficulty and thus are not motivated.
Self-regulation-Self-efficacy greatly influences self-regulation in learners. Students with high self-efficacy are most likely to engage in processes of self-regiulation such as goal, setting, self-monitoring, self-evaluation. These processes are linked to desireable intrinsic motivation, students are more likely to chose difficult tasks, respond positively to negative feedback and choose more effective strategies for organizing organization and monitoring performence, As a result of all the factors students with higher self-efficacy attain higher achievement.
Teacher-efficacy-is a belief by instructors that they have necessary skills to teach a variety of students effectively, positively influence students and their achievement. Teachers also will develop outcome expectations that all students can learn material and efficacy expectations which is belief in their own ability to help all children learn.
Self Determination Theory
According to self-determination theory, humans possess universal, innate needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. Autonomy or self-determination is when we perceive our behavior to be internally controlled or self-regulated, leading us to have choices in action rather than being controlled or pressured. Humans also have a need for competence, or an innate desire to explore and attempt mastery of skills. Relatedness is a sense of being securely connected to others and it goes hand in hand with a need to have a feeling of safety to explore our environments. The self-determination theory and the famous humanistic theory illustrated through Maslow's hierarchy of needs (mentioned later in wiki) are related and similar.
Becoming Self-Determined-
Like self-efficacy, self-determination is specific to a particular activity or subject. Individuals can develop self-determination for behaviors such as schoolwork, chores, or attending religious functions. Individuals develop self-determination throught a developmental process known as internalization which is moving from less self-dtermined to more self-determined behavior. Individuals show different types of motivation that varies in degree of autonomy depending on the degree of success at internalizing external regulations of behavior.
Amotivation-lack of motivation, individuals dont value activity and feel incompetent and have no expections to yeild the desired outcome
External Regulation-the least autonomous for of extrinsic motivation, individuals respond to external contigencies like rewards, prais, punishments and deadlines.
Introjected Regulation-extrinsic motivation in which individuals engage in an activity in order to comply with external pressure.
Identification-slightly internalized form of regulation that approximates intrinsic motivation. Individuals identify with the value of an activity, have accepted regulation of the activity as their own, and more willingly engage in the activity because they see it as personally relevant.
Integration-occurs when individuals have fully accepted extrinsic regulations by integrating them with other aspects of their values and identity.
Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs
Abraham Maslow (1954) attempted to synthesize a large body of research related to motivation theory. Prior to Maslow, researchers generally focused separately on such factors as biology, achievement, or power to explain what energizes, directs, and sustains human behavior. Maslow posited a hierarchy of human needs based on two groupings: deficiency needs and growth needs. Within the deficiency needs, each lower need must be met before moving to the next higher level. Once each of these needs has been satisfied, if at some future time a deficiency is detected, the individual will act to remove the deficiency. The first four levels are:
According to Maslow, an individual is ready to act upon the growth needs if and only if the deficiency needs are met. Maslow's initial conceptualization included only one growth need--self-actualization. Self-actualized people are characterized by: 1) being problem-focused; 2) incorporating an ongoing freshness of appreciation of life; 3) a concern about personal growth; and 4) the ability to have peak experiences. Maslow later differentiated the growth need of self-actualization, specifically identifying two of the first growth needs as part of the more general level of self-actualization and one beyond the general level that focused on growth beyond that oriented towards self They are:
- 5) Cognitive: to know, to understand, and explore;
- 6) Aesthetic: symmetry, order, and beauty;
- 7) Self-actualization: to find self-fulfillment and realize one's potential; and
- 8) Self-transcendence: to connect to something beyond the ego or to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential.
Maslow's basic position is that as one becomes more self-actualized and self-transcendent, one becomes more wise (develops wisdom) and automatically knows what to do in a wide variety of situations.Maslow published his first conceptualization of his theory over 50 years ago and it has since become one of the most popular and often cited theories of human motivation. An interesting phenomenon related to Maslow's work is that in spite of a lack of empirical evidence to support his hierarchy, it enjoys wide acceptance.
Maslow recognized that not all personalities followed his proposed hierarchy. While a variety of personality dimensions might be considered as related to motivational needs, one of the most often cited is that of introversion and extroversion.
Self-Actualization and the Implication of Maslow's Theory for Education
The climax of the hierarchy is the attainment of self-actualization or "the desire to become everything that one is capable of becoming". The implication of Maslow's theory lies in the relationship between deficiency and growth needs. Students who are in danger, hungry, living in poverty often have unfullfilled needs and are unable to strive for or achieve self-actualization. Schools and government agencies are sympathetic to these needs and recognize learning suffers when basic needs of students are not met. Programs that offer free and/or reduced lunches, breakfast at school and after school programs for the impoverished are funded by government agencies and school districts. The most critical deficiency needs are love and self-esteem, often these needs are not solved with financial allocations. Students with deficiency in feeling loved are unlikely to have motivation to achieve the higher level growth objectives. Ultimately a teacher who is able to put students at ease, help them feel valuable, lovable and important is more likely to enhance the students eagerness to learn. If students are to become self-directed learners, they must believe that the teacher will respond fairly and consistently to them, they wont be ridiculed if they take educational risks that are not correct.
Attribution Theory and Motivation
Defined, attribution theory is a theory that focuses on how people explain the cause of their own successes and failures. Proposed by cognitive psychologist Bernard Weiner, this theory has three major components:
- Locus of Causality (Is the cause of success or failure internal or external?)
- Stability (Would the outcome of the assessment be the same if the same behavior was prompted in a different situation?)
- Control (Can the cause for success or failure be directly controlled by the student?)
An equally important note is that attribution theory works on the assumption that individuals will endeavor to preserve a positive self-concept.Four primary attributions exist: ability, effort, task difficulty and luck. Let’s break them down according to the three principles above:
In our first vignette, Jason is readily succeeding in social studies class. When Mr. Weaver commends him on his performance, Jason replies “it’s so easy I feel like I don’t even have to study.” This attribution is ability-based and is internal, stable and largely uncontrollable. Jason is attributing his success to his natural aptitude for social studies, easily categorizing himself as “smart” in this subject area.
Here, we see Jason’s performance in social studies class begin to slip. Jason’s explanation for his performance centers on effort and is internal, unstable and controllable. Rather than classifying himself as “stupid” (internal, stable) or blaming his performance on external factors, Jason explains that he was not expending enough energy. He highlights the instability of his this attribution by noting that he will “work harder.” This implies that an increase in effort can turn his performance around.
In this instance, we follow Jason into his least favorite class: mathematics. Upon the receipt of a not-so-great assignment, Jason becomes upset. When questioned by Mr. Weaver, he reveals his explanation for failure: math is simply “too hard.” This explanation is based on task difficulty and is external, stable and uncontrollable. Not wanting to change his perception of himself as a good student, Jason blames his performance on factors largely outside of his control.
In our fourth and final vignette, Jason appears to have turned his performance in math class around. Surprisingly; however, Jason reveals his success as being a result of luck – an external, unstable, uncontrollable attribution. With his history of below-average scores, Jason is careful not to attribute his surprise success to anything internal or stable so that, given the next assignment turns out differently, he does not have to re-label his perception of himself.
What are the Implications of Attribution Theory for Education?
Whether we want to admit it or not, success and failure are components that run rampant in education. And, how a student perceives their success or failure at an activity is relational to how much effort they will put into similar activities in the future.
According to Purdue University, students are likely to be most motivated for school tasks when they attribute successes or failures to “internal, unstable factors over which they have control.” If we refer back to our chart, we are of course referring to our column for effort.
Harking back to our vignettes, we can see that when Jason attributed his trouble in social studies to a lack of effort, he displayed the belief that working harder could change his current less-than-favorable situation. This is where we want our students to be. Thus, teachers should attempt to instill in their students that working hard and giving each educational task their very best, can result in success. Essentially what one is doing is encouraging students to have an internal locus of control.
Defined, locus of control refers to whether people “attribute responsibility for their own failure or success to internal or external factors.” A student with an external locus of control would be most likely to blame task difficulty or luck for insufficiencies. Conversely, a student with an internal locus of control would blame themselves and their lack of effort. According to Robert Slavin, this characteristic is the second most effective predictor of a student’s academic performance. In fact, those students who tend to over-estimate the role that their effort plays in success or failure are the most efficacious.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic incentive is an aspect of an activity that people enjoy and therefore find motivating.
ex. Michelangelo Buonarroti Simoni (better known as simply Michelangelo) is the Italian painter and sculptor famously known for his work on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. In recollections of Michelangelo’s life, the late writer Vasari notes that though Michelangelo was sent to grammar school, he largely ignored his schooling in lieu of copying paintings and immersing himself in the artistic crowd. In other words, art had so much intrinsic incentive for Michelangelo that he sought it out himself.
Enhancing Intrinsic Motivation:
When attempting to increase Intrinsic Motivation in students, it is important to consider variety. While using a straight-forward PowerPoint presentation and accompanying lecture can be effective, this routine can easily become commonplace to students who endure much of the same for 180 school days. Effective teachers will, instead, use an assortment of teaching methods and aids. Below are some ideas for increasing intrinsic motivation, interspersed with different modalities for teaching. Notice the use of film, simulations and demonstrations.
A. Arousing Interest: When attempting to arouse interest in students, the goal is to either show how the information will be directly useful to students or to convince them that there is something inherently interesting within the material being presented.
Robert E. Slavin, author of Educational Psychology, Theory and Practice notes that teachers might stress to students, upon the start of a unit on percent, that when they begin to eat out using their allowance, they will need to calculate a tip for the waiter or waitress. This idea could be taken even further by simulating this experience for students in a “Restaurant Day” assignment. Students are put into groups of 2-4 and given menus that the teacher has collected from local restaurants. Each group is given a budget that they must stay with the boundaries of. Students are then directed to come up with a meal plan detailing what each person ordered, the tip for the waitress (at 15% and 20%) and if applicable, how much money they had left over. An example of what the teacher’s presentation might look like follows.
Convincing students that there is something inherently interesting within the material might be slightly more difficult. The key is to pick a topic for your anticipatory set that highlights something exciting, shocking or meaningful that is related to your subject. For example, in beginning a unit on the topic of volcanoes, teachers might show images of the plaster castes made from the bodies of those individuals who died after being covered by volcanic ash during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Pompeii and Herculaneum.
B. Choice: Giving students a choice in their education can serve as an intrinsic motivator. Students who are allowed to decide, for instance, what novel they are going to read in reading class, or whether or not they want to write an essay on the Battle of Gettysburg or the Battle of Shiloh, are often more motivated to partake in these educational tasks because they have selected them, and therefore have ownership of them.
A study entitled Stimulating Intrinsic Motivation for Problem Solving Using Goal Oriented Contexts and Peer Group Composition by Hae-Deok Song and Barbara L. Grabowski documents the effect that offering students a choice has. In their study, Song and Grabowski alter the distribution of authority between two groups. The first group has little choice, and during the course on an online problem-solving simulator, is forced to move through the program in a predetermined order. The second group is, conversely, allowed to navigate throughout the course at their own discretion. At the end of the study, based on surveys taken by the students involved in the experiment, the second group of students displayed greater intrinsic motivation to work through problem-solving activities.
C. Maintaining Curiosity: Maintaining curiosity throughout a unit can be tough, but there are ways to garner student attention when it appears to be fading. In his research, Robert E. Slavin notes that information that entails emotional materials (perhaps peril, tragedy or despair) piques student interest. Other elements that contribute to heightened interest are inserting demonstrations that flummox students, posing problems that aren’t easily solved, encouraging the use of computers, and, more generally, strong organization. D. Encouraging Realistic Goal Setting: On the whole, individuals who set goals for themselves are more likely to work hard to achieve these goals than are individuals who have goals set for them. This fact is quite obvious. A teacher may set the goal for his or her classroom at everyone achieving an A or B on an upcoming assignment; however, if a handful of students have no vested interest, the likelihood of that goal being achieved is low. While some students will have no trouble setting attainable goals for themselves, others may need some extra probing. Teachers would do well to sit down with these students in “goal-setting conferences.” These conferences should aid students in setting ambitious but realistic goals, provide counseling on how these goals can be achieved, and appropriately reinforce students when goals are followed through to fruition.
-Extrinsic Incentives are rewards that are external to an activity such as recognition, a token, or a good grade.
While you as a teacher may be enamored with the subject of fractions, it is a safe bet that some of your students may not be. Thus, while you attempt to increase intrinsic motivation through some of the methods mentioned above, it is also wise to provide some extrinsic motivation for students who need that extra incentive.
One way to do this is to outline structured expectations for students. Students who do not come naturally to certain subjects need to know how they can succeed. Giving explicit directions, such as what needs to be done for the assignment, how the assignment will be graded, and what the lasting effects of the assignment will be, gives each student the confidence that putting their best effort into the offered set of requirements can result in the extrinsic reward they are seeking. A good example of structured expectations manifests itself in a rubric.
A second type of extrinsic incentive to consider is feedback. Feedback is defined as “information on the results of one’s effort” (Slavin, 318). In order for feedback to be motivating it must be unambiguous and expressed in a timely manner. When a teacher gives feedback, the goal is to encourage an effort-based attribution by telling students what they did correctly, so that their hard work will be repeated in future assignments.
It is important to remember that because what is motivational differs from individual to individual, extrinsic incentives such as grades or feedback will not work for everyone. Some students may respond best to being the line leader, having first access to the swings or feeding the class pet.
Achievement motivation is the generalized tendency to strive for success and to choose goal-oriented, success/failure activities.
Student motivation can be oriented towards learning goals or performance goals.
When performance-oriented students run into problems or obstacles, they generally become discouraged and performance is hampered.
When learning-oriented students run into problems or obstacles, they generally continue attempting to solve the problem. Sometimes, encountering the problem can increase the student’s motivation as well as their performance.Learning-Oriented Student
Learned Helplessness is an extreme form of avoiding failure. A person suffering from learned helplessness feels that no matter what they do, it will result in failure. In an academic setting, this may take the form of “I fail because I’m stupid, so I will always fail”.
4 Ways to Help Students Overcome Learned Helplessness
1. Accentuate the positive - Get to know the student’s strengths and use these as building blocks.
2. Eliminate the negative – Deal with student’s weaknesses directly but tactfully. Talk with the student about the problem, create a plan to tackle with the problem, discuss the plan with the student and make a contract together about the implementation of the plan.
1. 3. Go from the familiar to the new – Teachers can use advance organizers and guided discovery to help students. Some students will have problems with concepts, skills or ideas that are new to them. Teachers should design lessons so they link to the student’s own experiences.
1. 4. Create challenges where students create their own problems and solve them using their own knowledge and skills.
For For more information on learned helplessness, go here.
Anxiety and Achievement
-Everyone experiences, however, for certain students anxiety can seriously inhibit learning as well as student performance.
-The main source of anxiety in school is the fear of failure.
How can anxiety hurt school performance?
1. Anxious students may have difficulty learning new things, transferring knowledge, or demonstrating their knowledge to tests.
2. Anxious students can become overly self-conscious in performance settings. This can distract their attention from the current task being performed.
3. Many students and adults suffer from math anxiety. Math anxiety can be diminished through the teaching of the conceptual knowledge of mathematics before teaching the procedural knowledge of mathematics.
Study Tips for Overcoming Math Anxiety
Teachers can decrease the anxiety of students in a classroom in numerous ways.
1. Teachers can create a noncompetitive, accepting, and comforting classroom environment.
2. Teachers should allow students the opportunity to correct and improve their work before handing it in for a final grade.
3. Teachers should begin tests with easier problems and slowly move to more difficult problems as the test progresses.
4. Teachers should avoid giving timed tests. Students should be given all the time needed for them to complete and check their exams.
Resources:
-Song, Hae-Deok and Barbara L. Grabowski. Stimulating Intrinsic Motivation for Problem Solving using Goal-Oriented Contexts and Peer Group Composition. Educational Technology Research and Development: 54.5: 445-466.
-Slavin, Robert E. Educational Psychology Theory and Practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ; Pearson, 2009.
-Purdue University. Educational Psychology. Purdue University Calumet. http://education.calumet.purdue.edu/vockell/edPsybook/Edpsy5/edpsy5_attribution.htm (24 March, 2011).
-Kelley, Harold H. Attribution Theory in Social Psychology. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Vol 15. 1967, 192-238.